


Yo Ho Sebastian!

by IndyMiller



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-20 01:09:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/579644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndyMiller/pseuds/IndyMiller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the song "Gay Pirates" by Cosmo Jarvis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**I. The prisoner.**

The war cries from the assailants and the shouted orders from his former commander reached the prisoner’s ears like rays of hope. He heard the steel clashing, the gunpowder exploding, the agonic screams of someone being gutted, and smiled. Their attackers had won. If he was lucky, that meant he would be free. If he wasn’t, at least the Devil would have been served not only with his soul, but also with the ones from the people that had chained him. He narrowed his eyes when the door opened, hurt by the summer sunlight he hadn’t seen in days.

“Oi, captain!” The man that had opened the door had a bandana covering his hair, five golden rings hanging from his ears and a sabre in his right hand, still dripping blood. “There be a prisoner ‘ere”.

The captive heard steps in his direction and soon a dark haired man in front of him. He was huge, at least six feet tall, with olive skin tanned by the sun and scars marking his face. His brown eyes examined him carefully, evaluating him.

“Wha’ be yer name, son?” He said at least, with a voice deep as the ocean itself and a very thick accent. Welsh, probably.

“Sebastian Moran, sir” the convict answered, wriggling his wrists and straightening his back in a futile attempt to find a comfortable and dignified position.

“Mooran, eh? A fine name. From Irelan’, ah s’ppose. Why be ye ‘ere, Mooran?”

In short, what he had done was called ‘mutiny’, but that was a very ugly word, especially because Sebastian could see where that conversation could lead, and it wasn’t a bad fortune. He had rebelled against his commander, dragging a few men with him. The rest of the sailors had been executed immediately, hung from the mast, but Sebastian had the rank of captain and he deserved to be judged.

“Differences with my superior, sir”.

“Diff’rences” he chuckled. “Ye seem tae be stroong an’ cap’ble. Tell me, be those diff’rences enough tae become a gentleman o’ fertune?”

The ex-captain wondered if he had a choice, but Lady Luck had been merciful enough with him and he wasn’t going to tempt her further by asking. “Yessir”.  A swift move with the massive cutlass he carried and Sebastian was finally free.

“Me name be Bart Rooberts. Cap’n Rooberts fer ye from now oon”.

The rest of the events happened very quickly and he barely had time to realize what had happened. He discovered that captain Roberts wasn’t cruel. He didn’t make the same offer to the part of crew that had survived because they were navy dogs, but didn’t slaughter them either as many others would have. His men gathered every single valuable thing they found and forced the sailors to get on boats and leave the ship, disposed of their weapons and armors if they wore any.

Sebastian was introduced to the rest of the crew, and before he could fathom the idea, it had happened. He had become a pirate.

 

**II. Ruddy.**

Sebastian adapted quickly to the pirate life. He was an experienced deckhand; the sea had no secrets for him, and whether he worked for the government or not wasn’t something he cared about. Although some of the men didn’t trust him, since he had been working with the enemies, he fitted in pretty quickly. In a couple of weeks, he couldn’t be distinguished from another buccaneer.

By the beginning of the autumn, he could proudly say he knew everything that was to know about his mates, the ship and the captain. Captain Roberts was remarkably lawful for a pirate, with a strict code for life onboard that had to be obeyed. This included the prohibition of drinking alcoholic beverages, having women in the ship and fights amongst men. The men could solve their problems in the shore. Besides, he was a religious man –as religious as someone of his kind could be—and respected the Sabbath dutifully, allowing the musicians to rest that day. The crew respected their captain, although they didn’t share his beliefs and it wasn’t rare to find a seaman drinking rum when he thought he couldn’t be caught, or two people whispering veiled threats to each other and even getting to a physical struggle when the captain was sleeping. Despite these small infractions, the coexistence was peaceful and less chaotic that Sebastian had expected at first.

There was only one person he hadn’t talked to yet, but this wasn’t strange. He was called Ruddy and served as pilot of the ship. Short and slim, with wiry arms and pale skin without scars, he seemed to be very out of place in a pirate ship. Even if he was very efficient, and had the ability to guide the vessel in the toughest conditions, he was always alone. He never ate, or ate earlier than anyone to avoid the company of the others. It wasn’t that he tried to hide –in fact, he was easy to find. When he wasn’t near the rudder, consulting his maps or those strange artifacts he had, he was, for Sebastian’s wonder and the general amazement of the gang, reading books.

There was something about him that called Sebastian’s attention. Probably was the fact that he was different from every other person in the boat, or that his black eyes burnt with intelligence and a spark of what was, without a shade of doubt, the worst kind of insanity. The blonde seaman found himself eyeing constantly the navigator, like a predator does with his prey, thinking of the best way to approach him.

One day, he found the way. It was on one of those moments of relax, when he abandoned his duties to enjoy the written word, apart from everything and everyone. Sebastian glanced at the cover of the book and sat beside him. “The Prince, by Machiavelli” he said, recognizing the author. Sebastian was an educated man, unlike many people like him, who had joined the Royal Navy willingly and not because he didn’t have another option. It was continuing the family tradition, since his deceased father had been a marine as well. However, Sebastian was different from him, which was obvious. Slightly rebellious, with a need for freedom and a taste for blood that the navy couldn’t fully give him, the pirate life suited him better.

With his words, the smaller man raised one of his thin, long eyebrows, finally averting his gaze from the pages. “Surprising” he said with a soft Irish lit.

“Ye be Ruddy, no?” the pirate vocabulary had easily slipped into his way of talking, which apparently disgusted the other sailor.

The pilot’s face contorted in an expression of utter aversion and disappointment. “Surprising again, that someone able to read has the same dialectic ability the apes you call ‘mates’ have”. Sebastian frowned, silenced by the sudden attack. ”Oh, excuse me. Is my grammar too complicated for you? Well, I’m afraid I’m not stooping to your level”.

Any other person would have probably backed off, leaving the weird little man alone, but Sebastian, stubborn to absurd limits, wouldn’t. “I’m sorry. It isn’t hard to get used to that way of talking, and it’s easier to fit in that way. Allow me to begin again. My name is Seb—“

“Sebastian Moran, I know” he interrupted him. “Former captain in the Royal Navy and our newest acquisition. I take the time to find out at least the name of the people I work with” the tone of his words and the look he had made the blonde realize his mistake.

“Your name isn’t Ruddy”.

“Your wit impresses me more and more with every second we spend together. No, that is a nickname some genius in the crew gave to me”.

“Shakespeare himself couldn’t have done it better” Sebastian said, winning a smirk from the pilot. “What’s your real name, then?”

“James-- Jim. Jim Moriarty”.

“Pleasure”.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on the song Gay Pirates by Cosmo Jarvis.

**I. The tiger.**

Whenever Jim or Sebastian weren’t working, they were usually together. They talked about literature, music or even politics. A couple of times the blonde managed to drag his friend with the crew and in both occasions, the result was a very angry Jim exiting the commons whilst shouting expletives in various languages and a very abashed Sebastian trying to calm down the rest and apologizing for him. In the end, he opted for abandoning the companionship of the other sailors and spending all his free time with Jim, who was far more interesting.

Jim taught him basic anatomy and Sebastian found out that if the smaller man had been graced with physical strength or any kind of ability for the fight, the mightiest warrior would have trembled before him. He knew every tendon that could be cut, every muscle that could be disabled and every weak spot in the human body. Jim told him how to defend himself without a sword, showing the places that could make any man faint if properly hit, and the former captain drank every bit of this information, practicing as much as he could to improve his moves.

“How can you know this much?” Sebastian asked once, after a particularly interesting lecture about processes of dying that could last days. “You are not a medic”.

“I’ve read a lot”.

“No, don’t lie to me. These things aren’t on your books. How?” There was a moment of silence, oas if Jim was calibrating if it was a good idea to keep talking about that or not.

“I did my research. Experimented”. The hollow look on his black eyes was enough for Sebastian to figure out what he meant. “Why do you think I’m stuck in this God forsaken boat? I needed a place to hide”.

During the next days, the former captain kept asking, discovering little by little –it was hard to get Jim to talk— that there was a reward offered for the head of his tiny friend, due to a long line of murders by his hand. Evidently, he didn’t enjoy the life as a pirate as much as Sebastian did, especially because the blood shed was violent and rough and it wasn’t how he liked to work. He imagined Jim hidden in the shadows, waiting for his perfect victim and putting them to sleep with one of his chemical preparations, to drag them to a dark alley. Or seducing them to any private location. Jim could be quite the charmer if he wanted to; it was easy to tell when he talked to the captain.

The more things the criminal taught him, the more reasons there were to fear Sebastian. The marines that survived the boardings from the _Royal_ _Rover_ told stories about a feral pirate, more a beast that a man, able to kill ten men with his bare hands and emerge untouched. Soon, the legend of Sebastian “Tiger” Moran was spoken in whispers in every tavern, when the night was dark and the stories of pirates filled the walls.

 

**II. Land ahoy!**

By the middle of the autumn they had moved to warmer latitudes, for them to not die of cold, being constantly in contact with the water and therefore slightly damp. However, in the sea some things were unavoidable, and on the first day of November, the surgeon of the ship died. Had the medical science been a little more advanced, they would have known it had been an aneurism and there was nothing that could be done to avoid it. They didn’t, so Captain Roberts, just in case, decided to take a series of measures. He ordered to throw the corpse to the sea for it not to infect other members of the crew. Moreover, fearing it could have been a punishment of God, he thought that a visit to the church was necessary. And to end with, they needed a new healer because it was dangerous to go sailing without one. So their next destiny it was clear: the Devil’s Island, the one that was the closest. The crew celebrated it happily; land meant booze, fights and women, the three essential things that were forbidden for them in the ship.

Jim told Sebastian that he didn’t like putting his feet on land because of two simple reasons. First, and this was obvious, he didn’t know if the authorities were still looking for him, or if his name was known in the place they were going to. Second, he had a huge problem with the inns in which they slept. When they weren’t shabby brothels in which every night could be heard a concerto of moans in D sharp, they had to share the same room excluding the Captain. On board, the pilot could just sleep in the hold or in the room in which the maps were stored, and no one would miss him. There, he couldn’t have a choice. The result was staying awake for days, until the tiredness defeated him and he blacked out in a random place.

Sebastian offered himself to keep the other man company in those long nights, hoping they could find a barn to sleep together. Jim hated being filthy, having a surprisingly careful hygiene for someone who lived with pirates, but the blonde didn’t mind cleaning whichever place necessary and getting his hands dirty for him. Thus, they spent their first nights together.

It wasn’t until the third night that the things changed. Sebastian was having an incoherent and terribly messy dream that involved –somehow—sex with mermaids, and started to wake up with a touch that belonged to somewhere external to his reverie. Without opening his eyes, mind still foggy, he smiled, mixing reality and slumber and completely convinced he was receiving the attentions of a lady. Until he managed to complete a logical chain of thoughts and realized that the only female entity in there was the cow that was kept on the inferior floor. And then opened his eyes wide and sat up, stiffening.

“Jim! What the hell?”! The pale, small hand was instantly retired from underneath his trousers, and a dark and questioning look met his eyes.

“You were hard. I thought you would appreciate it” Jim’s voice was calm, if anything slightly startled.

“What? No! How-- Why-- What made you think—" The former captain felt himself unable to form a complete sentence, absolutely taken by surprise by that act. However it didn’t matter, because Jim understood him.

“Well, since you didn’t pounce on a woman as if you were a hungry wolf like the rest of them, I thought you were not into that. I wouldn’t say you are an abstinent man, Sebastian, so I presumed the most logical possibility. And since you appear to enjoy my company, I thought we could both appreciate some fun”.

Sebastian was then left speechless. For the most part, he considered himself heterosexual. Truth was he had never been religious and in time of war every hole was a trench, and onboard he had fucked a man or two. But of course, like the overly sexual young lad he was, the moment he put feet on land, the moment he went to seduce a wench. That time, it hadn’t happened because Jim had mesmerized him. Six months without sex and he had renounced to it for Jim. Yes, his friend’s deduction was evident, and Sebastian hadn’t even noticed. Well, fuck.

“…alright” he muttered finally. The dark haired man was staring at him with one of his thin and long eyebrows raised, as if wondering why had been staring to the void for a good minute. “Alright. Alright.”

“Have you forgotten the rest of the words you knew?” He seemed impatient. Sebastian dared then to glance at the other’s crotch, to find an obvious bulge that indicated clearly the reason for his eagerness.

“No. No. I just— I—“ Nothing. Anything remotely similar to eloquence had abandoned him.

“I’ll tell you what to do. You allow me to prove my deduction tonight, and if you don’t like it, I won’t talk about it again. And if you do…” Jim grinned. Sebastian thought coldly that he was about to take advantage of his confusion, but wasn’t able to tell him no. The signs were there, and what if…?

That night they didn’t sleep, nor the next one. And if someone saw Sebastian smiling more than it was usual… well, hopefully they attributed it to the alcohol.


End file.
